A pilot commissioners’ board in San Francisco today formally concluded that error by pilot John Cota was a factor in a massive oil spill from a container ship into the San Francisco Bay last fall.

Cota, 60, of Petaluma, was piloting the Cosco Busan when the ship hit a protective fender of the Bay Bridge and spilled nearly 54,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into the bay on Nov. 7, 2007.

At a hearing this morning, the Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun voted to accept a committee report that found that Cota committed errors in seven ways.

Board general counsel Gary Gleason, who presented the report to the panel, said it “unequivocally indicates there was pilot error.”

The mistakes included allowing the ship to sail in heavy fog, failing to resolve concerns with the ship’s radar system and an electronic chart system, and proceeding at an unsafe speed.

Another error, the report said, was failing to take into account communication difficulties with the Chinese crew, who had limited English-speaking abilities.

Gleason ended the presentation by playing a recorded statement made by Cota shortly after the accident.

Cota said, “So yeah, it’s foggy…I shouldn’t have gone. I’m not going to do well on this one.”

The board, a state agency, is charged with licensing and regulating Bay Area maritime pilots. The investigation was undertaken as part of a bid to revoke Cota’s state pilot’s license.

Cota eventually voluntarily retired, effective Oct. 1, making further revocation proceedings unnecessary, but the board was required by law to complete and consider the report.

The report did not investigate whether any other parties were also responsible for the accident.

John Meadows, an attorney for Cota, told the board that the fault lay partly with the crew’s failure to alert Cota of the ship’s position and the Coast Guard’s failure to adequately warn him of the impending accident.

Meadows said, “Had that been done, we wouldn’t be here today.”

The spill killed birds, fouled beaches and disrupted the fishing industry. The report said the ship’s owners and operators have estimated that cleanup and compensation costs will exceed $80 million.

Cota and the ship’s operator, Fleet Management Ltd. of Hong Kong, have both been criminally charged in federal court in San Francisco with polluting the bay, killing migratory birds and making false statements.

Several civil lawsuits blaming Cota, Fleet Management and the ship’s owner, Regal Stone Ltd. of Hong Kong, for the spill are also pending in federal court in San Francisco.

They were filed by two groups of fishermen, the federal and state governments, the city of San Francisco and a pilot association’s insurance company.

Fleet Management and Regal Stone, meanwhile, have charged in court papers that Cota and the federal and state agencies that licensed him share responsibility.

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